Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-42gr6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-20T02:57:39.130Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Dimensions of Elite Partisan Polarization: Disentangling the Effects of Incivility and Issue Polarization

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 June 2020

Rasmus Skytte Open the ORCID record for Rasmus Skytte [Opens in a new window]
Rasmus Skytte*
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, Aarhus University, Denmark
*
raks@ps.au.dk
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Elite partisan polarization has been found to have several potentially problematic effects on citizens, such as creating political distrust and different types of polarization among partisans. However, it remains unclear whether these effects are caused by the parties moving apart in terms of issue positions (issue polarization) or by the rise of disrespectful rhetoric (incivility). In the literature, these two dimensions of elite polarization often appear to affect citizens in similar ways, but typical research designs have not been well suited to disentangling their effects. To determine their unique effects, four studies have been conducted using original designs and a mix of experimental and observational data. The results show that issue polarization and incivility have clearly distinct effects. A more uncivil tone lowers political trust, but increasing issue polarization does not. Conversely, only issue polarization creates attitude polarization among partisans. Both aspects of elite polarization create affective polarization.

Keywords

polarizationincivilityaffective polarizationpolitical trustattitude polarizationAmerican politics
Type
Article
Information
British Journal of Political Science , Volume 51 , Issue 4 , October 2021 , pp. 1457 - 1475
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abramowitz, AI and Saunders, KL (2008) Is polarization a myth? The Journal of Politics 70(2), 542–555.Google Scholar
Ahler, DJ and Broockman, DE (2018) The delegate paradox: why polarized politicians can represent citizens best. The Journal of Politics 80(4), 1117–1133.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Anderson, AA, et al. (2014) The ‘nasty effect:’ online incivility and risk perceptions of emerging technologies. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 19(3), 373–387.Google Scholar
APSA (1950) Toward a More Responsible Two-Party System. A Report on the Committee on Political Parties. New York: Rinehart and Company.Google Scholar
Aronson, E et al. (1990) Methods of Research in Social Psychology. New York: McGraw-Hill.Google Scholar
Berinsky, AJ, Margolis, MF and Sances, MW (2014) Separating the shirkers from the workers? Making sure respondents pay attention on self-administered surveys. American Journal of Political Science 58(3), 739–753.Google Scholar
Bøggild, T (2016) How politicians' reelection efforts can reduce public trust, electoral support, and policy approval. Political Psychology 37(6), 901–919.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Borah, P (2014) Does it matter where you read the news story? Interaction of incivility and news frames in the political blogosphere. Communication Research 41(6), 809–827.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brady, DW, Harbridge, L and Ferejohn, J (2008) Polarization and public policy: a general assessment. In Nivola, PS and Brady, DW (eds), Red and Blue Nation? Consequences and Correction of America's Polarized Politics. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, pp. 185–234.Google Scholar
Broockman, DE (2016) Approaches to studying policy representation: studying policy representation. Legislative Studies Quarterly 41(1), 181–215.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brooks, DJ and Geer, JG (2007) Beyond negativity: the effects of incivility on the electorate. American Journal of Political Science 51(1), 1–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Citrin, J and Stoker, L (2018) Political trust in a cynical age. Annual Review of Political Science 21(1), 49–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coe, K, Kenski, K and Rains, SA (2014) Online and uncivil? Patterns and determinants of incivility in newspaper website comments. Journal of Communication 64(4), 658–679.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dafoe, A, Zhang, B and Caughey, D (2018) Information equivalence in survey experiments. Political Analysis 26(4), 399–416.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dodd, LC and Schraufnagel, S (2013) Taking incivility seriously. In Frisch, SA and Kelly, SQ (eds), Politics to the Extreme: American Political Institutions in the Twenty-First Century. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 71–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Druckman, J et al. (2018) How incivility on partisan media (de-)polarizes the electorate. The Journal of Politics 81(1), 291–295.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Druckman, JN, Peterson, E and Slothuus, R (2013) How elite partisan polarization affects public opinion formation. American Political Science Review 107(1), 57–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fiorina, MP, Abrams, SA and Pope, JC (2008) Polarization in the American public: misconceptions and misreadings. The Journal of Politics 70(2), 556–560.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fiske, ST, Cuddy, AJC and Glick, P (2007) Universal dimensions of social cognition: warmth and competence. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 11(2), 77–83.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Forgette, R and Morris, JS (2006) High-conflict television news and public opinion. Political Research Quarterly 59(3), 447–456.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frimer, JA and Skitka, LJ (2018) The Montagu principle: incivility decreases politicians' public approval, even with their political base. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 115(5), 845–866.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Funk, CL (2001) Process performance: public reaction to legislative policy debate. In Hibbing, JR and Theiss-Morse, E (eds), What is it About Government That Americans Dislike? New York: Cambridge University Press, pp. 193–208.Google Scholar
Gaines, BJ, Kuklinski, JH and Quirk, PJ (2007) The logic of the survey experiment reexamined. Political Analysis 15(1), 1–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gervais, BT (2015) Incivility online: affective and behavioral reactions to uncivil political posts in a web-based experiment. Journal of Information Technology & Politics 12(2), 167–185.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gervais, BT (2019) Rousing the partisan combatant: elite incivility, anger, and antideliberative attitudes. Political Psychology 40(3), 637–655.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harrison, BF (2016) Bully partisan or partisan bully? Partisanship, elite polarization, and U.S. presidential communication. Social Science Quarterly 97(2), 418–438.Google Scholar
Hetherington, MJ (2001) Resurgent mass partisanship: the role of elite polarization. The American Political Science Review 95(3), 619–631.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hetherington, MJ (2005) Why Trust Matters: Declining Political Trust and the Demise of American Liberalism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Hetherington, MJ (2009) Putting polarization in perspective. British Journal of Political Science 39(2), 413–448.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hetherington, MJ and Rudolph, TJ (2015) Why Washington Won't Work. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hwang, H, Kim, Y and Huh, CU (2014) Seeing is believing: effects of uncivil online debate on political polarization and expectations of deliberation. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media 58(4), 621–633.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Iyengar, S, Sood, G and Lelkes, Y (2012) Affect, not ideology. Public Opinion Quarterly 76(3), 405–431.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Iyengar, S and Westwood, SJ (2015) Fear and loathing across party lines: new evidence on group polarization. American Journal of Political Science 59(3), 690–707.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jones, DR (2015) Declining trust in Congress: effects of polarization and consequences for democracy. The Forum 13(3), 375–394.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
King, DC (1997) The polarization of American parties and mistrust of government. In Nye, JS, Zelikow, PD and King, DC (eds), Why People Don't Trust Government. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, pp. 155–178.Google Scholar
Lamberson, PJ and Soroka, S (2018) A model of attentiveness to outlying news. Journal of Communication 68(5), 942–964.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Layman, GC, Carsey, TM and Horowitz, JM (2006) Party polarization in American politics: characteristics, causes, and consequences. Annual Review of Political Science 9(1), 83–110.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lelkes, Y (2016) Mass polarization: manifestations and measurements. Public Opinion Quarterly 80(Suppl. 1):392–410.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Levendusky, M (2009) The Partisan Sort: How Liberals Became Democrats and Conservatives Became Republicans. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Levendusky, M and Malhotra, N (2016) Does media coverage of partisan polarization affect political attitudes? Political Communication 33(2), 283–301.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Levendusky, MS (2010) Clearer cues, more consistent voters: a benefit of elite polarization. Political Behavior 32(1), 111–131.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McCarty, N, Poole, KT and Rosenthal, H (2016) Polarized America: The Dance of Ideology and Unequal Riches. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Middaugh, E, Bowyer, B and Kahne, J (2017) U suk! participatory media and youth experiences with political discourse. Youth & Society 49(7), 902–922.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miller, AH (1974) Political issues and trust in government: 1964–1970. American Political Science Review 68(3), 951–972.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Muddiman, A (2017) Personal and Public Levels of Political Incivility. International Journal of Communication 11, 2182–3202.Google Scholar
Mullinix, KJ (2016) Partisanship and preference formation: competing motivations, elite polarization, and issue importance. Political Behavior 38(2), 383–411.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mutz, D (2017) Response to Kyle Mattes and David P. Redlawsk's review of in – your-face politics: the consequences of uncivil media. Perspectives on Politics 15(1), 194–195.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mutz, DC (2007) Effects of ‘in-your-face’ television discourse on perceptions of a legitimate opposition. American Political Science Review 101(4), 621–635.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mutz, DC (2015) In-Your-Face Politics. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mutz, DC and Reeves, B (2005) The new videomalaise: effects of televised incivility on political trust. American Political Science Review 99(1), 1–15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Paris, C (2017) Breaking down bipartisanship: when and why citizens react to cooperation across party lines. Public Opinion Quarterly 81(2), 473–494.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Persily, N (2015) Introduction. In Persily, N (ed.), Solutions to Political Polarization in America. New York: Cambridge University Press, pp. 3–15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Robison, J and Mullinix, KJ (2016) Elite polarization and public opinion: how polarization is communicated and its effects. Political Communication 33(2), 261–282.Google Scholar
Rogowski, JC and Sutherland, JL (2016) How ideology fuels affective polarization. Political Behavior 38(2), 485–508.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schraufnagel, S (2005) Testing the implications of incivility in the United States Congress, 1977–2000: the case of judicial confirmation delay. The Journal of Legislative Studies 11(2), 216–234.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Skytte, R (2019) “Replication Data for: Dimensions of Elite Partisan Polarization: Disentangling the Effects of Incivility and Issue Polarization”, https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/YFFNSX, Harvard Dataverse, V1, UNF:6:9C5W2YkCdemFsyx/5EYT2Q== [fileUNF]Google Scholar
Slothuus, R (2016) Assessing the influence of political parties on public opinion: the challenge from pretreatment effects. Political Communication 33(2), 302–327.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sobieraj, S and Berry, JM (2011) From incivility to outrage: political discourse in blogs, talk radio, and cable news. Political Communication 28(1), 19–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Treier, S and Hillygus, DS (2009) The nature of political ideology in the contemporary electorate. Public Opinion Quarterly 73(4), 679–703.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Uslaner, EM (2015) Congressional polarization and political trust. The Forum 13(3), 361–373.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Webster, SW and Abramowitz, AI (2017) The ideological foundations of affective polarization in the U.S. electorate. American Politics Research 45(4), 621–647.Google Scholar
Westfall, J, et al. (2015) Perceiving political polarization in the United States: party identity strength and attitude extremity exacerbate the perceived partisan divide. Perspectives on Psychological Science 10(2), 145–158.Google ScholarPubMed
Zingher, JN and Flynn, ME (2018) From on high: the effect of elite polarization on mass attitudes and behaviors, 1972–2012. British Journal of Political Science 48(1), 23–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Supplementary material: PDF

Skytte supplementary material

Skytte supplementary material

Download Skytte supplementary material(PDF)
PDF 1.5 MB
Supplementary material: Link

Skytte Dataset

Dataset

https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/YFFNSX
Link